Happiness Quote by Nora Dunn

There is a quiet sting tucked inside Dunn's throwaway shrug: the fashion world may have treated her body as capital, but she treated the whole enterprise as material. "I used to get laughs" lands like a backstage confession, because runway modeling isn't supposed to be funny. It's built on the pretense of seriousness - the disciplined walk, the blank face, the myth that clothes can manufacture importance. Dunn flips that hierarchy. If people laughed, it wasn't because she cracked jokes; it was because the spectacle is already absurd, and she had the presence to let the absurdity show.

The second sentence is the real tell: "I thought it was a joke anyway". It's defense and critique at once. As an actress and comedian, Dunn frames modeling not as a glamorous chapter but as an early education in performance: how you can be applauded for projecting an image that isn't really you. By calling it a joke, she keeps the power on her side. If the industry objectified her, she declines the role of victim by insisting she never took the premise seriously. That doesn't erase the exploitation; it exposes it. The laugh becomes a pressure valve, a way to survive a culture that polices women's bodies while pretending it's art.

The intent reads like reputation management with teeth. Dunn isn't just being self-deprecating; she's puncturing the idea that proximity to glamour equals status. The subtext: the runway, like so many stages, rewards commitment to an illusion. She chose to see the strings.